


Contact

by thestarsjustblinkforus



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, First Meetings, Gen, Nonexplicit but dubiously consensual sex, POV Clint Barton, Spy Natasha Romanov, Spy-related voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-15 05:49:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16927620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thestarsjustblinkforus/pseuds/thestarsjustblinkforus
Summary: They gave The Widow an opening, and as thin as her file is because she's that damn good, he knows enough to know she's going to take it.He slaps his shot glass down on the table and gestures loosely for one more when she walks in and he takes another satisfied drag of his cigarette because he's damn good too.





	Contact

 

He lights a cigarette, takes a deep drag and  _goddamn_  it’s as good as he remembers...

He’s been looking forward to this and since he’s not one to do that too often if ever, he lets himself enjoy it even though it will most likely lead to a pack-a-day habit that will take way too long to shake off once he’s back in the States, but the point is to blend in, so he gives in, he breathes deep. He fades into the background of this bar full of men with downcast eyes and rough faces, their movements a touch too slow as they reach for another drink through the thick haze of Belomorkanal smoke and the tinny sound of a [30-year-old rock song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9p4B6s0j4U) playing on the ancient radio tucked in among the half-empty bottles as he waits.

Viktor sits with his back to him at the bar, his black fur coat making him look bigger and richer than he is. The kid talks too much, boasts too much, has too much to prove. The only reason he can see that S.H.E.I.L.D. decided to use him at all is that their contacts in Russia keep ending up dead and there's only so many who have a connection to Dreykov in the first place.

Viktor's a driver. A trusted one. Someone's kid, probably. Cousin. He knows better than to shoot his mouth off about his job in public, but everything else is fair game.

 _"I used to be in a band..."_ he tells the barkeep.  _"We were good as Kino, easy."_  He reaches to turn up the shitty radio and the barkeep averts his eyes when he sees the heavy gold watch on his wrist and lets him. Viktor smirks, says,  _"But there are quicker ways to make money..."_

Because that's what it's always about with kids like him.

Money.

Or sex.

Or revenge.

For example, Viktor is a 23-year-old punk pissed that Dreykov’s relegated him to chauffeur and is eager to move up in the ranks even if it’s at the expense of his employer. If selling him out to S.H.E.I.L.D. is what it takes, well,  _ochenʹ plokho..._

As for sex, he's got a date with a girl from Volkov’s crew who’s got her own connections. It’s a multi-transactional assignation, an exchange of information with a bonus  _thank you for your cooperation_ exchange of bodily fluids that Clint spent the past two weeks coordinating through several back channels because Volkov’s even more paranoid than Dreykov.

He glances at his watch.

She’s late.

Something must have come up.

He’d been banking on it.

They gave The Widow an opening, and as thin as her file is because she's that damn good, he knows enough to know she's going to take it.

He slaps his shot glass down on the table and gestures loosely for one more when she walks in and he takes another satisfied drag of his cigarette because he's damn good too.

She stands there for a moment in the doorway before lowering her hood that’s dotted with snow and she’s smaller than he expected, younger. She couldn’t be more than 20 years old.

Also, "ATTRACTIVE", printed in caps and bolded on her breakdown, doesn't really cover it.

Girl's got a mouth like a ripe strawberry and it smiles when she catches sight of her mark singing along badly to the radio, and when she moves towards him she moves like liquid, like she's barely shifting the air at all, and he’s thinking “DANGEROUS” doesn’t really cover it either.

He drags a finger through the splash of vodka he’s left on the table, swaying that slight subtle sway that says,  _drunk_ , that says  _nothing to see here move along_ as she passes right by him so close he catches the scent of her perfume in his mouth. There’s an audible rustle in the room as the other men notice her as well, but she only has eyes for Viktor.

Her hand is a blinding white against the black fur coat as she strokes his shoulder, as she says in a husky voice,  _“Privet, tovarishch…”_ and the barkeep pours him his shot, his finger still tracing circles in the spill as Viktor brushes her blood-red hair away from her face, tilting her chin up to him, like he’s  _thinking_  about it, like he’s not as fucking impressed as anyone with a pulse would be and she surveys him coolly, a small smile on those lips.

He takes another pull of his cigarette as they leave together. After a moment he tosses a few rubles onto the bar and follows, trailing smoke behind him.

He runs into Volkov’s girl outside. He tells her the deal is off. She was late. She tries to argue, tries to explain her driver never showed up, she got here as fast as she could,

_“Chto ya dolzhen skazat' yemu? On budet zol!”_

_“Sdelka prekrashchena,”_  he repeats firmly and tosses the cigarette aside as he shoves his hands in his pockets and briskly follows their footprints in the snow to the Khrushchyovka.

xXx

He hates how cold it is in this goddamn country.

His fingers, despite being calloused as shit and barely able to feel anything on a good day other than the bowstring that fits into the permanent imprint it’s left in them, have gone from being numb to burning like he’s touched them to flame, to being numb again several times in the last half hour.

He unscrews the cap of his flask with his teeth and spits it aside, takes a deep swig and immediately feels his insides start to warm, if not his goddamn hands, and he slaps them together once, twice, trying to get some life back into them.

All the fucking technology S.H.E.I.L.D. has and they can’t spring for some fucking warmers...

He knows what Coulson would say to that. Coulson would say, “ _Try some gloves with actual fingers, Barton.”_

And Fury would tell him to man the fuck up and keep his eyes on the prize.

The light turns on in Viktor’s apartment across the courtyard, the sheer drapes transforming the windows into soft glowing picture frames against the dingy grayness of the building and she suddenly appears in one of them looking for all the world like a mudflap silhouette. Viktor comes to her, his hands grasping, clutching at her body like it’s his to have however he wants, not knowing that she's allowing this, that she’s Death in a dress and can cut him down in half a second if she wants.

Her hand comes up suddenly and grasps Viktor’s hair pulling his head back and Clint’s fingers twitch for his bow, an arrow, out of reflex, but he knows she’s not going to kill him. At least not until she has what she wants, and it’s  _not_  the list of personnel he’s told him to spill as an intro, a taste of what he can provide Volkov...

What she wants is a location and Viktor doesn’t have that yet.

She lets go of him, she turns towards the window and her hands press the curtains into the glass as he comes up behind her, possessive once again, not heeding the warning she has just given him as their shadows disappear into each other.

xXx

Viktor meets him first thing in the morning still smelling of perfume and skin and before he can get into the specifics of her double-jointedness and her tongue in particular, he asks him if he dropped the hook, if she bit, and Viktor laughs and says,  _“Yes, comrade, she bites...”_

“She trusts that you’re legit?” Barton interrupts him before he starts talking about her thighs again and Viktor leans back in his chair, shaking out a cigarette and placing it lazily between his lips.

“Yeh, yeh. I made sure she knows I’m not just some asshole driver... that I know how things really go down, I know how things are  _run_. I know  _people_. That I’m gonna be a big man soon as her Boss take him out. She wants to meet again.” He grabs his crotch and grins.

“When will you have the location?”

“I get the schedule tonight... which car I’m taking, where it’s going. I get everything, yeh?” Viktor’s eyes suddenly go hard as he leans forward, almost snarls, “I get  _everything_ ,” and Barton takes a cigarette from Viktor’s pack tossed carelessly onto the dirty table, sticks it in his own mouth, lights it, and says through a tumble of smoke,

“You’ll get everything you deserve, Viktor.”

“And what about you,  _comrade_? What do you get?” Viktor smirks, “You just a yes man? Like me? Someone tells you to get me a girl, you get me a girl? Or maybe you keep an eye on me? Make sure I don’t try to make my own deal with Volkov? How you fit into this?”

“I fit into this by making sure you get to be that Big Man.”

“Why.”

“Because Dreykov’s worn out his welcome. We’d prefer to do business with you.”

“You my protector?”

“I’m your protector.”

“From who?”

“Anyone who’s a problem.”

Viktor grins.

“You take out Volkov if I say so?”

“If you say so.”

Viktor squints at him, leans back in his chair again and takes a drag, shooting a quick look at the door to the back room they’ve holed up in almost like he expects someone to bust in and take him out.

He shakes his head, “You’re not for me,” he says. “You’re here for her boss. I get Volkov to Dreykov and that gets him to you. You take them both out and U.S. is in control. I’m not so stupid.” His eyes flash. “Dreykov thinks I’m stupid.”

Clint stubs out his cigarette and cocks his head in acknowledgement because barring the whole idea of a S.H.E.I.L.D.takeover of a notorious arms dealer and human trafficker's business _,_ the kid’s damn close to right. Except it’s not about Volkov and never has been. Not yet, anyway. It’s about  _her_.

_The Black Widow_

Her file may be light on personal information but there’s a list of hits and more than a few are innocent bystanders. Someone who operates like that gets a black mark next to their name. Someone like that who will take any job that offers enough money is going to have to be put down. Especially when they’re as good as she is.

They got a heads up a month ago that she was after Dreykov, which was convenient because they were too. They had been in the process of putting things into place to take him out until they got tangled up in some bureaucratic b.s. that said to hit pause despite the fact that innocent lives were hanging in the balance. Dreykov is bad fucking news and waiting until they’ve untangled all the red tape is not an option, especially when they don’t know where it suddenly came from. More often than not Fury’s paranoia is the canary in the coal mine and so they’re moving forward, just in a different way.

Dreykov needs to be stopped. And no one said anything about protecting him from an assassin who wants to take him out.

_“I get Volkov to Dreykov and that gets him to you.”_

Two birds, two stones. One thrown by her and the other by him.

She never misses and neither does he.

xXx

He watches her shadow gather her hair in her hands, twisting it atop her head like a crown, her arms like wings and then snakes as she begins to dance, sweeping languid steps, moving like ink through water across the pale screens of the curtains and if he listens hard enough he can just hear the music softly reaching out from across the courtyard. It’s something he doesn’t recognize because classical music isn’t really his thing but it’s moody and mournful and that he does recognize and the shape of her limbs echo the strains of the melody and he thinks of her breaking Viktor’s neck between her thighs just moments before, the sharp jerk of her muscles moving just like this - the motion and the imagined sound of that final horrible crack, harmonious, fluid, beautiful.

xXx

_“The contact?”_

_“Eliminated.”_

_“... By you, or the target?”_

_“Target.”_

_“Location was confirmed?”_

_“Yes.”_

_“And passed on to the target?”_

_“Yes.”_

xXx

She takes out Dreykov like they wanted.

He watches her raise her gun, point it at the remaining victim, the only one left who has seen her face and he needs to do this  _now_  before she can finish it but something stops him, something makes him  _wait_  even though his heart is pounding in his ears because

A little girl in a white dress standing in the white snow, black shadows on the ground all around, the guards she dropped in under 30 seconds and  _“Papa, Papa!”_  and the red... so much red seeping into the snow...

The little girl drops to her knees sobbing over Dreykov’s motionless body, shaking him ( _“Papa!”_ ) as the red climbs up her dress and she still doesn’t  _shoot_.

More guards are on their way.

She knows she can take them all out without breaking a sweat and he knows it too. This is when he’s supposed to do it.  _Now_  is when he’s supposed to do it. The second wave is supposed to find her, gun in hand, a dead assassin with no connection to S.H.E.I.L.D. lying in her own blood. The kid wasn’t supposed to be there. They didn’t even know there  _was_  a kid.

Apparently, neither did she.

Her record told them that wouldn’t have mattered, but he watches as she lowers her arm.

She can’t do it.

Even though it means she will not be safe. Even though it means they will come for her...

She leaves her witness alive.

He watches her turn and stalk off into the trees as the melee below him begins with that second wave.

They run after her into the forest but they won’t find her.

He won’t either and another chance may not come again.

xXx

When he returns to his post he finds one of his cigarettes half-smoked on the window ledge, a perfect circle of lipstick on the end.

Across the courtyard Viktor’s windows are open, the curtains no longer drawn and she dances in a bloodstained slip, she spins on her toes, her arms out and then in, embracing herself and letting go, letting go, letting go.

The piece ends and she comes to a stop, her head bowed over her knee, her leg outstretched, toes pointed and arms at her sides, demure.

She stands suddenly, breathing hard, giving him an easy target.

She goes to the window and she meets his eyes across the way.

They look at each other for a long moment. He knows she sees his weapon. He knows hers is within reach.

She turns away, she disappears from his view and the lights go off.

xXx

She’s following him.

He knows what that means.

When he turns to face her her gun is aimed at his head, his arrow at her heart and they’re both quick enough that it’ll either be a draw or they’ll both be dead.

“ _Kto tebya poslal._ ”

He doesn’t answer.

“ _Qui t'a envoyé._ ”

He doesn’t answer.

“ _Wer hat dich geschickt._ ”

He doesn’t answer.

She pauses, a slight sneer when she asks one last time, “Who sent you.”

“Why didn’t you kill her.”

“Who  _sent_  you.”

He looks at her for a long moment. Thinks only briefly about how stupid he is about to be before lowering his weapon.

“You didn’t kill her.”

She doesn’t lower hers.

He keeps his eyes on her eyes.

“I’m Clint.”

She blinks.

“What are you doing,  _Clint_.”

“Was gonna kill you, changed my mind.”

Her grip on her gun tightens and his heart is jackhammering in his chest.

“You think you could.”

“I’ve had a few chances in the last few days and at least one of ‘em you gave me.” He pauses briefly for her to acknowledge, which she doesn’t. “Last night. It kinda freaked me out.”

The expression on her face doesn’t change. He’s always been good about reading a room, a person, a woman, but he’s got nothing. She may as well be a statue.

“We used you to take out a target for us. We set it all up. You got access because we made sure you got it.”

Nothing.

“I was supposed to take you out after if the guards couldn’t do it. You’ve done some fucked up shit and my boss thinks you’re a rabid dog that needs to be put down.”

A slight shift at her throat at that, but her arm does not waver, a straight line pointing right at his head, her finger firmly placed, and one twitch…

“What’s your name?”

She doesn’t answer, says tensely, “ _Raise_  it,” nodding at his bow and arrow.

“I’m not gonna-”

“Why not.”

“Because you didn’t do it.”

“Do what.”

“Dreykov’s daughter. You let her live.”

Silence.

“They’ll be coming for you.”

“So.”

“So, I want to help you. I think you need help.”

“A  _‘rabid dog’_ is  _beyond_  help.”

“You proved you’re not.”

The snow begins to fall, silent, soft, delicate. It’s beautiful and so fucking cold and he thinks he could be looking at the living embodiment of a Russian winter right before him.

Her arm drops to her side so suddenly he flinches.

And a flicker of movement, a shadow that doesn’t make sense-

He raises his bow and shoots praying she doesn’t do the same as his arrow sails over her shoulder and into the throat of the assassin behind her.

She stares at him, not reacting at all to the sound of the 200-pound body crumpling into the snow at her back. There’s a line of blood at the side of her neck where the fletching grazed her and he nods at it.

“Sorry ‘bout that.”

She holsters her gun and turns briskly, stepping over the body and he follows her back to his safe house which was never really that safe in the first place judging by how intimately she seems to know it and how easily she slips past his alerts.

She takes one of his cigarettes without asking and sits at the window he had watched from. It’s a long time before she speaks.

“Why do you want to help me.”

“You’re just a kid.”

She ashes it with a scoff.

“I’m not.”

“Yeah, you are.”

“Alright then,  _dedushka_. How do you propose to help me? You get me out of the country? And then what? My people will come looking, Dreykov’s people will come looking. There will be more.”

“We can protect you.”

Another scoff.

“And who is ‘we’?”

“S.H.E.I.L.D.”

“Never heard of you.”

“Exactly.”

She smirks at that and then goes blank again like ice over a fuckin’ lake.

“Here,” he comes to her, holding out a bandage, nodding at the cut on her neck.  She looks at it and then him.

“You want to help me.”

“Yeah.”

She tilts her head, granting him access.

He pauses and then comes forward, carefully slipping his fingers past her collar to gently wipe the blood away and apply it, half wondering if this is actually how he’s gonna die, determined to show her he’s choosing to trust her and that she can him and being really goddamn wrong.

She quickly turns her head, and suddenly they are face to face, close enough to feel each other’s breath and he holds his until she says, her voice low like whiskey and smoke,

“Is that all you want.”

He doesn’t break eye contact, fingers still under the fabric of her shirt, feeling the warmth of her skin and her pulse.

“Yeah. I’m good.”

“ _Are_  you. Interesting…”

He smirks at that and leans back.

“You don’t gotta worry about that here.”

“I can handle myself.”

“Yeah, I know.”

She looks out the window again, the clear view straight into Viktor’s apartment. She blows smoke.

“He was your friend.”

“No.”

“Good. He had no manners.”

“That’s not gonna happen again.”

She laughs sharply and suddenly he feels like the kid.

His comm unit clicks on in his ear and he stands. She stiffens at the sudden movement and he holds out his hand and then points to the comm.

“I have to take this.”

He pauses before turning to leave the room.

“I’m just gonna trust that you’re gonna stay put…. Don’t ah. Don’t kill anyone. I’ll just be a minute.”

xXx

Fury is predictably furious and he’s treated to about three minutes worth of creative language before he pauses and says,  _“You think she’s willing to turn?”_

“I think we keep her under strict surveillance for a bit until we can trust that we can work with her-”

_“Red Room, Barton.”_

“Yeah, I still don’t really know what the fuck that means-”

“Brainwashing. Behavior modification. Training in weapons, languages, psychology, physiology....” She speaks from the doorway right behind him, leaning against the frame and lighting up a fresh cigarette.

“I’m not made of those y’know.”

She shrugs, takes a drag, unconcerned.

Fury in his ear,  _“Pick up is in zero two hundred. Get to the extraction point and keep her contained or it’s your ass, Barton.”_

He clicks off. Looks at her looking at him. After a moment,

“I want out. KGB, Russia. I am not good for anything else but…” she looks down at her free hand holding the book of matches he’d been using. She closes her fist softly around it. “But no more children.” She takes a breath, shakes her head, “no children.”

He flashes to her file. There was a hospital fire listed. One she started. In a children’s ward in Belgrade. He says it before he can stop himself:

“That one haunt you?”

She doesn’t hesitate:

“Yes.”

Pause.

“That surprise you.”

“No.”

Quiet.

“They’re not going to want to let me go. Any of them.”

“Well…” He doesn’t know what to say. He didn’t really think any of this through. In his head he can hear Coulson sigh tiredly, Fury swear a few dozen more times. “You’re… pretty special.”

She stares at him like he’s crazy, her lips twitching slightly.

She holds out her cigarette. His cigarette.

He takes it. Smokes it.

“Let’s get outta here, Red.”

“Natalia.”

“ _Natalia_.”


End file.
